Potpourri

20Mar

Some odds and ends for today’s post. I will probably be dark for email and internet for most of today. The Verizon folks have finally priced their product called FIOS within range of my budget. As a consequence I am shifting from a DSL and Telephone vendor (Earthlink) and a TV Vendor (Direct TV) to go under a single provider called FIOS. This is supposed to make my internet much faster (20 MB down/10 MB up) and improve HDTV. All the while cutting my costs by a not so insignificant number. Yeah Technology. I hope the modems and set top boxes are cleaner than their predecessors were. The Direct TV DVR was a real mess noise wise. I could hear its switching supply all the way to my power breaker box. That was after covering all of its cables with ferrite.

Morse Code. Sigh. Will it ever get “Good”? My code buddy and I are again struggling with a bump in speed. This time to 32 or 33 wpm. We began this journey at 20 wpm. Every few months we bump things up a bit and struggle with sending all over again. I am at the point that I believe my physical coordination is limiting my ability to form characters properly. This last move has been particularly painful from an accuracy perspective. Mine is suffering more than a usual bump of 2 wpm or so that we do every couple of months. My “D’s” are becoming “B’s” and some other characters are suffering too. Lazy thumb is what I call it. In any event this most recent bump in speed has been more difficult for me. No one ever said it was going to be an easy evolution. Coincidentally, my ability to copy in my head exceeds my ability to make characters properly.